Happiness and Misery

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.

George Orwell, 1984, in Happiness and Misery

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.

Lord Byron, in Happiness and Misery

If we couldn't laugh, we'd all go insane.

Jimmy Buffett, in Happiness and Misery

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Carol Burnett, in Happiness and Misery

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Aristotle, in Happiness and Misery

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

Aesop, in Happiness and Misery and Success and Failure

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Francis Bacon, in Happiness and Misery

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

To live a perfect life, you must ask nothing, give nothing, and expect nothing.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

Anaïs Nin, in Happiness and Misery and Wisdom and Ignorance

Nostalgia is the realization that things weren't as unbearable as they seemed at the time.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

Misery is optional.

S. Gilmary Beagle, in Happiness and Misery

Living well is the best revenge.

George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, in Happiness and Misery

Live each day as if it were the last day of your life, because so far, it is.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

If you wish you be like someone else, you waste the person you are.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

Here's to your love, health, and wealth -- and time to enjoy each.

Unknown, (Spanish proverb), in Happiness and Misery

For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

Everyone smiles in the same language.

Unknown, in Happiness and Misery

Even the the most tempting rose has thorns.

Tristan Eggener, in Happiness and Misery